HCP's Ronald C. Kessler was recently elected to membership in the prestigious National Academy of Sciences
HCP Professor Ronald C. Kessler is elected to the National Academy of Sciences

HCP professor Ronald C. Kessler, PhD, was recently elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Membership in the NAS is awarded based on recognition of a nominee’s “distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.” Election to the Academy is considered one of the highest honors that can be accorded a scientist. Kessler is one of four Harvard Medical School faculty members elected this year to the NAS, and the only social scientist in the group.

The NAS honored the importance of Kessler’s impressive body of research over the past three decades. His work includes serving as principal investigator of the National Comorbidity Survey, the first nationally representative survey of the prevalence and correlates of mental disorders in the United States (1991 and 1992); principal investigator of several NCS extensions, including a 10-year follow-up of the baseline NCS sample and a replication of the NCS in 2001 and 2002; director of the NCS adolescent (NCS-A) survey, the first nationally representative survey of adolescent mental health ever done in the United States; co-director of the World Health Organization’s World Mental Health (WMH) surveys, a series of nationally representative epidemiological surveys carried out in 28 countries; and director of the Hurricane Katrina Community Advisory Group, a panel study of psychological adjustment among people who were residents of the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina at the time of the storm.

Of his election to the National Academy of Sciences, Kessler says, “I’m deeply honored to be selected for membership in the National Academy. My work would not have been possible without the support of my many colleagues and collaborators. HCP has been a wonderful place to carry out my research.”

Read more about the National Academy of Sciences at the NAS website, as well as the NAS press release about the newly elected members. Also read about the HMS honorees in the Focus newsletter of Harvard Medical School.

Kessler is also featured in an article in the Boston Globe.